PLANS are in the pipeline to create a new purpose-built crematorium near Royal Wootton Bassett.

A site on a former showground at Upper Studley Farm off the A3102 Swindon Road has been earmarked for development by the Westerleigh Group - a company that specialises in building crematoria.

Currently, the nearest crematorium for people to the western side of Swindon is at Kingsdown, which can take up to 30 minutes in a funeral cortege.

Westerleigh hopes the new facility will relieve pressure at Kingsdown and help accommodate the thousands of services held there every year.

In 2015, Kingsdown hosted 2,028 cremations and sometimes families have to wait up to four weeks for a 30-minute slot.

The developers will unveil their plans at an exhibition next week and hope the public will offer feedback to help shape their planning application, which will be submitted within the year.

“We are planning a small, single-storey building set behind the existing dense woodland screen,” said Steve Bucknell development director at Westerleigh Group.

“Most of the site will be given over to a memorial parkland for the scattering and interment of cremated remains.

“We find that our living memorials – mostly trees, but also shrub borders – are increasingly popular.”

Modern crematoria are ‘clean to air’ as they do not emit smoke or odours. Instead, they require an environmental permit from the local Environmental Health Office, and are subject to stringent monitoring.

Under the new plans, the chapel would seat up to 98 people, with room for up to another 100 standing and could have 76 parking spaces.

The crematorium would be accessed from the A3102, with a new ‘right turn lane’ junction to allow traffic into and out of the site safely, and Westerleigh is planning to operate funerals at intervals of one hour in between 10.30am and 3.30pm so that it falls outside peak traffic flows.

The developers added that the new access would not conflict with the Junction 16 improvement works.

Westerleigh, which has had pre-application consultation with Wiltshire Council and Highways England, will hold the exhibition next Thursday from 2.30pm and 7.30pm at the Royal Wootton Bassett Rugby Club.

Westerleigh operates 24 crematoria, and a small number of cemeteries, across England and hosts over 30,000 funerals a year.

For more information, visit www.westerleighgroup.co.uk